Southern Discomfort
"Consisting of seven monologues by six quirky characters living in the contemporary American South, the 70-minute piece is touted in its press release as being "in the Southern Gothic tradition of Flannery O'Connor and Carson McCullers." I suppose it is, but Gray's writing is nowhere near the quality of those two prose masters, so I'm not sure that invoking their names is such a good idea. That's not to say Gray's script is bad; on the contrary, it's flavorful and observant, but its collection of personages is too random to cohere into anything larger. ... Gray's performance is unfailingly intelligent, and she differentiates her personages well. ... Director Daniel Zimbler allows Gray to undercut her effectiveness by excessive reliance on props and costume pieces, which she pulls from a battered trunk stage center, discarding and donning as needed while music covers the change."
Erik Haagensen for Back Stage
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